


The Longest Night & Other Yuletide Stories

by okapi



Series: Many Times, Many Ways (the Christmas fics) [12]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Pining, Christmas memories, Ficlet Collection, M/M, References to The Nutcracker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-18 09:12:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13096965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: ACD ficlet collection for Christmas 2017.1. The Longest Night. 1892, St. Petersburg. A man named Livanov attends the ballet. Pining!Holmes.2. Fireside. The last Christmas at Baker Street. Pre-Retirementlock. Holmes/Watson.3. Snow. The first Christmas in Sussex. Retirement!lock. Holmes/Watson. Inspired by fanartRomance in the Snowby Ishouldreallybedrawing/fictionforlife.4. Charades. Holmes recounts a Christmas memory. A bit angsty.





	1. The Longest Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> St. Petersburg, 1892. On the longest night of the year, a man named Livanov attends the ballet. Pining!Holmes during the Hiatus. References to _The Nutcracker_.

It was the longest night of the year, and I had decided upon a course of action, an indulgence, a bit of recklessness that might well render it the last night of my life.

I was going to the ballet.

It was a gift to myself for having survived nine months of purgatory, of life as hunter and hunted. I say life but ‘un-life’ may be the more illustrative term, for my former self was dead and my every incarnation since that fateful day was either borrowed from another or fabricated in whole.

I was in disguise, of course, but men’s formal evening wear, whether in London or St. Petersburg, is helpful in that respect. Its aim is, above all, uniformity.

I was an actor named Livanov, or, perhaps more truthfully, I was _almost_ an actor named Livanov, for the ghost of a detective named Sherlock Holmes kept haunting me and keeping me from full submersion in the role.

And Holmes was not the only spectre at the feast.

I timed my appearance at the Mariinsky Theatre carefully and studied my environs carefully, but as I took my seat, a glance at the man to my right told me that, though no threat, he was quite unequal to the task of guarding my flank.

I missed my Watson.

And missing him was, too, an indulgence, a bit of recklessness on par with the attendance of a man presumed dead by most and wished dead by at least one at so celebrated an event as a premiere of a work by a world-famous composer.

But I was so very tired of running and hiding and planning and looking over my shoulder and doing the foul work of untangling Moriarty’s web and carrying the burden of my sins. For one night, nay, for a few hours of the darkest, longest night, I wanted to do something civilised, something in which my former self had revelled.

Many times, my conscience had argued that my manipulation of Watson, the grief I’d caused him and was causing him still, rendered me unworthy of any pleasure, least of all one as fine as this, but I had finally silenced the nagging voice with the counter-claim that if that was the true state of affairs, Providence could easily settle accounts by putting Colonel Moran, or one of Moriarty’s other cronies, in the audience or even on the stage. Or by simply ill-placing my foot on a patch of ice and cracking my head, accordingly.

The lights dimmed. The music began.

Oh, how Watson would have loved this! It would have more than made up for the Wagner I had foisted upon him over the years. I smiled as I imagined him leaning in and whispering such words in my ear.

The overture was much like our good-natured banter before the fire at the rooms we had once shared in Baker Street. Shared, I reminded myself. Now Watson was living with his wife. It was my one consolation, that he had a source of consolation in his grief, one he loved dearly.

I focused my attention on the music, listening intently, giving the scenery and the dancing as little notice as would allow me to keep up with the story.

But Watson, romantic that he was, would have adored the spectacle.

Oh, and there was the nutcracker, the broken soldier. I winced, remembering the day that Watson had first moved his few belongings to the Baker Street lodgings.

And there was the seven-headed mouse-king. Oh, I knew him, too. And his army.

The battle raged. Good won. So may it be, I prayed, when this nightmare is over.

And then the heroes, the girl and the nutcracker, were transported to a sweet dreamscape.

Oh, how Watson would have gasped in wonder! He would have beamed like a child on Christmas morn! He might even have reached for my sleeve, or perhaps, just perhaps, my hand. I would have squeezed his affectionately whilst committing to memory its shape and texture and warmth.

The songs were lovely: the chocolate, the coffee, the tea. But each made me think of Watson.

And, suddenly, the burden was too heavy, and I thought of cocaine and of opium. Both might be had readily enough if I desired invincibility or oblivion, respectively.

I shrugged off the temptation.

What I craved most was for Watson to be here, right here, in the seat next to me. I wanted to enjoy it with him, to head to Simpson’s afterwards, chatting about all we’d seen and heard, humming and miming the dancing; I wanted then to totter back to Baker Street, flush with the night’s diversion, for a smoke and a drink and perhaps even a bit more diversion—

No. That way lay madness.

Now there was the Mère Gigonge and the Polichinelles. I thought of Mrs. Hudson, attempting to maintain order in so unruly a household as ours.

But, oh, the Waltz of the Flowers!

And then the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier!

I was lost, transported to a fantasy realm of my own, and when the notes finally died, it was a crashing blow to be brought back the cold theatre, to my false moustache, to my perilous, and companionless, condition.

I brought my hand to my cheek, then noted with horror the wetness on my fingertips.

The music had brought me to tears. Or was it a longing for my old friend? Or was it the pain of a love never expressed, never realised, beyond the ken? Or was it all of these things?

My mind rebelled at my heart’s ache, and I realised my folly, my hubris. With this excursion, I had not only exposed myself to my enemies, or more precisely, my enemy’s allies, I had revisited upon myself sentiment that might have been better buried in a watery Swiss grave alongside my former self and the trust of him I held most dear.

But such was the power, and the allure, of music, wasn’t it? To dare one to think, to feel, to imagine impossibilities.

As the orchestra swelled with the final waltz, I vowed not to take such risk again until, Providence willing, I returned to London, resurrected my former life and my former name. I determined that should I survive the longest night of 1892, I would leave the city at first light and travel east.

And long before the applause had ceased, I bid farewell to my Christmas dream and slipped unnoticed, I hoped, out of the theatre, leaving Livanov behind and welcoming the night’s cruel bite.


	2. Fireside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: Fireside  
> Rating: Gen  
> Length: 500  
> Notes: H/C. Fluff. pre-Retirement!lock, one of my all time favourite tropes.  
> Summary: The last Christmas Eve at Baker Street.

“Where have you been, Holmes, on such a night as this?”   
  
“Where does anyone go on Christmas Eve, my dear Watson?”   
  
“A public-house!” I teased, then finally tore my gaze from the fire. “Ah, there’s my Gladstone. I wondered what had become of it. I assumed that you destroyed it in one of your experiments.”   
  
“I told you, Watson, when you inquired as to its whereabouts that I had need of it,” he said gently.   
  
“Is it not the same thing?”  I harrumphed and resumed my solemn contemplation of the flames.   
  
Holmes set the bag by the fire. “I observe that you are in a philosophical mood tonight, my dear man, and not a wholly festive one, either.”   
  
“Yes,” I said, curtly, and, after a few minutes of companionable silence, spoke my mind.   
  
“I suppose that people have been staring into fires for as long as there have been fires in which to stare and telling stories by them for as long as people have been speaking at all.”   
  
My eyes roamed about the mantelpiece, resting lightly on each piece in turn:  the clock, the jack-knifed which still transfixed unanswered correspondence; the pair of birds of prey, one black, one white, mounted; the Indonesian puzzle-box. A vine of red-berried ivy wound its way through the clutter.   
  
I didn’t want to say the words aloud. Holmes said them for me.   
  
“It is our last Christmas at Baker Street.”   
  
I nodded, blinking.   
  
“How many stories, Holmes? How many stories have I written at that desk?” I pointed. “How many have stories have these dancing flames witnessed? So many. I haven’t published half. I suppose I’ll store the notes in my old tin dispatch-box.  Ah, well. We have led a life. Such a life!”   
  
I felt a hand not yet warmed by the fire, covering mine. Long elegant fingers curled in a reassuring squeeze.   
  
“Our lives are not over, my dear Watson.”   
  
“No, of course, not.” I shut my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose between finger and thumb. “By Jove, I’m a maudlin one tonight.” I looked at him. “Happy Christmas, Holmes.”   
  
“Happy Christmas, Watson,” he replied, releasing my hand and reaching for the Gladstone bag. “And I hope that this will provide a bit of remedy for your melancholy and serve as a reminder that there are yet pleasures to be had, pleasures which this life, even with all its adventure and riches, could not have afforded us. There will be fires and stories in Sussex, stories made _and_ told.”   
  
Then he pulled his hand out of the bag.   
  
My heart threatened to burst with joy. “Oh, Holmes!” I exclaimed.   
  
I took the small, squirming bundle of chocolate-coloured fur from him and brought it to my chest at once, feeling very much like a child at Christmas.   
  
My voice broke when I said, “He’s wonderful.” And the little scamp began to lick my chin.   
  
Smiling, Holmes leaned back in his armchair and turned his grey eyes toward the fire.


	3. Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: Snow  
> Rating: Teen for snow smooch.  
> Length: 500  
> Notes: Retirement!lock, inspired by fan art [Romance in the Snow](http://holmestice.livejournal.com/425665.html) by Ishouldreallybedrawing/fictionforlife for mistyzeo for 2016 winter Holmestice.  
> Summary: Holmes & Watson have a snowball fight in Sussex.

Holmes’s shovel stopped its work at the voice calling from the door of the cottage.   
  
“How is it going out there?”   
  
“Mustn’t grumble,” grumbled Holmes, adjusting his hat for the third time. Then he scooped up another shovelful of snow and hurled atop a growing pile.     
  
“The snow’s lovely here,” cried Watson. “Not like London!”   
  
The cottage door closed.   
  
Holmes harrumphed.   
  
It _was_ lovely snow if one was, like Watson, viewing it through a window, beside a roaring fire, with one’s hands wrapped around a mug of mulled wine.   
  
It was _not_ lovely snow if one was, like Holmes, viewing it directly, with one’s gloves wrapped ‘round the handle of a frozen spade; and it was most decidedly _not_ lovely if one was viewing it for the purposes of removing as much of it as possible from one’s dear beehives.   
  
Holmes toiled on, his sweat threatening to freeze on his temples and his breath fogging with every ragged exhale.    
  
Really, even if the hives were his purview, Holmes really didn’t see why Watson did even _offer_ to help with this arduous business of—   
  
_ THWACK! _  
  
Holmes was started out of his silent complaint by something cold striking his shoulder.    
  
He looked down at what was left of the snowball. Then he looked over at a grinning Watson who, fully dressed for the elements, was packing a second missile between two gloved hands.    
  
“Watson!”    
  
Watson laughed.    
  
Holmes fixed him with a challenging stare and a gloved index finger. “You are in trouble.”   
  
“Doubtful. Your single-stick expertise won’t help you here, my dear man.”    
  
“Neither will your rugby, Doctor.”    
  
Just as Watson’s snowball sailed by, Holmes bent to sink his cupped hands in the snow and prepare his own ammunition, but when he righted himself, a third snowball caught him square in the face.   
  
Watson cackled.   
  
“Now you most _certainly_ are in trouble,” warned Holmes as he raced after a fleeing Watson.    
  
The skirmish lasted for the better part of an hour, with Watson scoring more direct hits but also being more prone to stumble, which Holmes used to great advantage.    
  
“Watson?!”   
  
Holmes had just lobbed a large projectile directly at Watson’s head. Watson’s hat flew in one direction, with the rest of Watson falling to the ground in the opposite direction.    
  
Holmes ran to Watson’s side, calling his name.    
  
Watson flipped onto his back, panting and laughing and grinning. “I’m fine, ol’ sport. More than fine. Oh, we couldn’t do this in London, could we?”   
  
Watson’s mirth was contagious.  Holmes found himself grinning, too. “This either.”   
  
And with that, Holmes tore off his own hat and tossed it towards Watson’s some paces away. Then he fell atop his beloved and kissed him soundly.   
  
When their lips parted, Holmes said in a husky voice, “Shall we resume this important discussion by the fire?”   
  
“Yes, I’d very much like to spend the remainder of the day admiring the country snow from afar, that is, of course, after we dig out your bees.”   
  
“Oh, Watson.” 


	4. Charades.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: Charades  
> Rating: Teen (one smooch and mention of a bit of cruel teasing and murder)  
> Length: 500  
> Notes: Retirement!lock; a bit angsty, takes place right after the Snow fic (chapter 3 of this collection), which Holmes & Watson get back inside after digging the bees out of the snow.  
> Summary: Holmes recounts a Christmas memory from his childhood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter for this collection. I hope everyone had a good Christmas and I wish all my lovely readers a Happy New Year. We'll see you in 2018.

Holmes tasted warm port as well as cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and mace in Watson’s kiss.

“Mulled wine and charades,” he mused as he extended his arm. Watson, after setting his mug aside, returned to his rightful place, that is, curled next to Holmes beneath the blankets. “Mulled wine and charades. It takes me back. It was my first Christmas Eve of memory. The old family manor. I was five years old. Mycroft was twelve. Long after we were supposed to be in our beds upstairs, he and I had crept out to watch the gathering of adults below through the railings. They were playing charades and drinking mulled wine by an enormous tree decorated in full Dickensian fashion. Mycroft and I were guessing the charades, mouthing the answers to each other, often before the player’s pantomime had even commenced.”

“My Uncle Henry was big, rough, red-faced man. Always very fond of his jokes, but always with a tendency to go too far. When he set about miming ‘A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream,’ he made a quite spectacle of himself. His wife, my Aunt Violet, was a quiet, demure woman. Her only passion was her flowers and, it wildly was known, though never mentioned publicly until Uncle Henry’s charade, that she believed in fairies and built small houses out of sticks and straw which she left about the garden for the fairies’ use. The men howled at Uncle Henry’s jesting about the fairies and how he pointed to his wife and mimed her little houses. The women laughed, even Aunt Violet herself, but in the latter’s case and two others’, the mirth never reached their eyes. I looked at Mycroft and he looked at me. We weren’t laughing. And it was then, by mutual and mute agreement, we stole back to our beds. That night that we invented our own ‘Deduction Game,’ ostensibly because we couldn’t be bothered with simpleton amusements, but also because I think we were put-off by Uncle Henry’s display of cruelty.”

“It is extraordinary,” said Watson, “what children perceive. And you, my dear man, were an extraordinary child, of that, I am certain.”

“Not that extraordinary and not that perceptive, my dear Watson. To this day, I remain ignorant of what precisely happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“By Twelfth Night, Uncle Henry was dead. And I do not know which one of them killed him.”

“What, do you think your Aunt Violet—?”

“Or perhaps my grandmother—”

“Not she of the Barbary-pirate-throat-slashing?”

Holmes nodded, smiling. “The very same. Or my mother. She, fantastic creature that she was, told me that the fairies got Uncle Henry. Grandmother said matter-of-factly that his heart gave out. But I remember the look in Aunt Violet’s eyes the night of the mulled wine and charades. And I now I suppose I’ll never know.” He sighed and kissed the top of Watson’s head. “Inscrutable, my dear man.”

Watson shuddered in his arms. “I’ll never make mulled wine again,” he vowed. “I much prefer cocoa anyway.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
